A NOTE: Our Russia-Ukraine Resources are updated weekly - if you're accessing the page three or more weeks past the below date, pieces mentioned in this post may have been removed to make room for up-to-date resources.
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Updated Resources - December 5, 2024
Burning forest in Mykolaiv region of Ukraine after Russian shelling. Extinguishing the fire was complicated by gusty winds, repeated shelling, and unexploded ammunition at risk of detonation from the fire. 9 August 2022. (Dsns.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
Kyiv Independent: Newsfeed
Novaya Gazeta Europe: Newsfeed
The Insider: Newsfeed
The Telegraph via Apple Podcasts - Ukraine: The Latest
Emissions emanate from the Frolovsky electric steel smelting plant in Russia. (Redboston, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
WHAT'S ON OUR MIND
In addition to our weekly resource update, today we also offer an updated collection of pieces on the Israeli-Hamas war.
Amidst a steady stream of media coverage on war’s economic, political, and humanitarian toll, a quieter voice reminds us of an equally grave cost, the war’s ecological consequences. Our review includes limitations war places on activism and oversight, environmentalism’s place in national discourse, prospects for restoring Ukraine, and solutions to the challenge of weighing national self-interest against global imperatives.
We open with a broad look at how war ravages the environment from The Conversation. The Moscow Times summarizes five impacts of the Ukraine War on environmental progress in Russia. An overview from The Insider offers greater detail on these impacts, including on economic and social growth. Following COP29, another piece from the The Insider delves into the Kremlin’s regard for environmentalism as a tool for political influence, and Russian elites’ skepticism towards climate change. A third piece examines systematic ecological degradation in Russia under the pretext of supporting industry affected by sanctions. The Moscow Times explores Russian societal views on climate change in a podcast with climate and anti-war activist, Arshak Makichyan, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Director of the Climate and Energy Program at WWF Russia, Alexei Kokorin.
Across the border, a joint study conducted by climate NGOs and Ukraine's Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources reveals extensive greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the Russian invasion. A Reuters special report details devastation to Ukraine’s vast forests, offering stunning imagery of war’s toll.
Responsible Statecraft summarizes the soil contamination of Ukraine’s vaunted ‘bread basket,’ while research from the Journal of Environmental Management offers deeper insights into this soil degradation, the conflict’s endangerment of four protected areas in Ukraine, and proscribed mitigation measures. In the multidisciplinary science journal, Nature, an interview with a Ukrainian sustainable-development researcher who, after fleeing her home country, now works in Switzerland to heal its soil, melds the personal with the empirical.
The Kyiv Independent provides a surprising ecological silver lining to the 2023 destruction of Kakhovka dam in the form of flourishing biodiversity and rewilding. On a different waterway, the ecological interdependence of Russia and Ukraine is revealed in the Kyiv Post which details the presumed impact of a Russian sugar factory on the health of Ukraine’s Desna and Seym rivers and the Kyivan water supply. A Wilson Center interview with an environmental security specializing in the water and conflict space spotlights the concept of water weaponization.
Beyond Ukraine, Foreign Policy explores environmental risk and potential legal remedies to minimally insured and ill-maintained Russian oil tanker traffic on the Danish straits, operating in defiance of sanctions. In the Caucasus, The Moscow Times examines the war’s aggravation of the Caspian Sea environmental crisis.
We conclude with potential paths forward. The Conversation assesses legal recourse, positing that Russian actions in Ukraine amount to ‘ecocide,’ with the aim of rendering regions in the country uninhabitable, and suggest that these actions could fall under the ICC’s purview. In a different piece, the former publication considers the psychology of international climate negotiations, offering tactics to overcome the impediment of national self-interest in service of global collective action.
On ecological restoration, one piece from the Wilson Center underscores the importance of a collaborative approach to environmental rehabilitation in Ukraine, while another takes a closer look at the vital process of clearing and managing war debris in the besieged country. Finally, the International Review of the Red Cross offers a detailed look at how emerging technologies can be leveraged to facilitate environmental monitoring and accountability in conflict zones.
In the arts, a collaboration between the Cleveland Orchestra Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv embodies the reclamation of Ukrainian culture, a new installment of Ukraine's most popular video game series achieves commercial success and cultural diplomacy, a Riga bookshop showcases portraits of Russian emigres fleeing war and repression, and rock musician and underground icon Boris Grebenshchikov discusses the futility of drawing the line between those who left Russia and those who stayed.
Find these important stories - and so many more - on today’s Russia-Ukraine Resource page. Visit our blog for insights into the Israel-Hamas War, including the recent Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire. Find also the latest reflections from our network on the ground in the region.
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